Was colonialism really that bad?
>>763600
>Belgian pile of hands
>>763600
>British pile of boer bodies
No, it was not bad at all. /thread
>>763600
>Was colonialism really that bad?
It depends on where and who.
>>763600
it was oppressive economically speaking but nah, not so bad
>>763600
Nope. Especially the way Europeans pulled out from their former colonies without going full genocide, it was a huge gift. Essentially Europe invested a shit load of time and money in Africa, built up Africa, and left.
>>763614
This. The spectrum ranges from Belgian brutality in the Congo to essentially the creation of a Modern state in India by the British. The natives generally got a raw deal in any case, but who you were colonised by generally decided how much society improved thanks to their influence.
>inb4 poo in loo
>>763622
Should have left a lot slower though.
>>763629
>muh railroads
>>763647
Butthurt Punjab detected.
It seems pretty likely that a lot post-colonial states, particularly in Africa, would have been much more successful if the process of independence were slower, and natives were properly socialized and educated about systems of government and law and economics.
I think it is important to remember that most European superpowers of the time would not have established if it was not worthwhile. The idea that they did so to grant the natives access to the pinnacle of civilisation for nothing has no grounding. In many ways colonialism was establishing national identity franchises in other parts of the world to spread their own narcissistic idea of society. To simply ask was it a good or bad thing? Is to simpllistic, but all responses here have merit.
>'belgian' brutality
All the really bad shit in the Congo was done under the private administration of Leopold 2. He personally ran it, not the Belgian government. After all the evil shit he did came to light, control was given to the Belgian government and conditions improved dramatically.
I find it funny someone thinks a nation would act altruistic toward another nation.
>>763647
Good thing those railroads and cities the Europeans built up didn't disappear when they left. Africans are lucky they weren't genocided when the Europeans left, and the ONLY reason they weren't was a system of thought that valued human life which was created by Europeans themselves during the enlightenment. Colonization is a new phenomena because historically larger civilizations enslaved and genocided defeated ones. Africa is extremely lucky.
Maybe the Africans can learn how to be productive ants under the Chinese.
>>763600
Put it this way. I am superior to you in education and intelligence. Based on that, I go to your house, take your shit, fuck your wife, and make you my slave. Would you like that?
>>763727
You can't seriously have that much of a simplistic view on it, can you?
>>763727
>Put it this way. I am superior to you in education and intelligence. Based on that, I go to your house, take your shit, fuck your wife, and make you my slave. Then I turn your house into a mansion, and leave a bunch of money lying around. Then I leave. Would you like that?
FTFY
The situation was a bit complicated than that.
>>763673
Idiot
>>763678
Idk what ur saying
>>763691
Belgian alert
>>763692
It's happened before
>>763702
They used it to pump even more resources out
>Implying Genocide is feasible in the modern age
Trying to do it ties down so many troops that enemies will invade you. Hitler lost the war because he kept trying to wipe out Serbs and Ukries and had to put in a whole detachment
>Amerifat logic
>>763720
>Highest suicide rate in the world
I really don't think Asia has much to brag about
>>763753
>Africa
>A mansion after withdrawal
Empires suck wealth out of their lands you faggot. It's an entropy lowering mechanism and saying otherwise is retarded.
>Learn 2 Physics
>>763600
If it hadn't been the Europeans, then it would have been the muslims, asians or jews (communists). The white man did his duty and civilised the world and prevented it falling into the hands of a truly evil empire.
>>763647
wew lad
Oh who am I kidding? I'm glad you don't get to burn your wives anymore!
>>763753
Colonialism extracted wealth from the colonies. It did not leave it there. You can't be so simple minded as to believe otherwise.
>>763600
this has been discussed 100s of times on /his/
the technology was good
the colonial government was bad, but not much more or less oppressive than the kingdoms they replaced
this is the correct opinion, all else is either /pol/ edginess or reddit's hysteria over racism
>>763793
>Trying to do it ties down so many troops that enemies will invade you. Hitler lost the war because he kept trying to wipe out Serbs and Ukries and had to put in a whole detachment
The Africans during the age of colonization were literally fighting guns with bows and arrows. It is not the same as Serbs and Ukrainians who have European arms and training. Europeans could have easily genocided native tribes in Africa. Depopulating the entire continent of natives would be a tall order - not impossible but difficult - but it was entirely within the scope of European might to genocide entire tribes / cultures along the heavily colonized areas. The ONLY reason they didn't was because they didn't want too.
>Empires suck wealth out of their lands you faggot. It's an entropy lowering mechanism and saying otherwise is retarded.
Of course they do. I'm not saying that Europeans sailed to Africa to donate civilization to them. However, Africa was so undeveloped when the Europeans arrived that they had to build roads, rail and docks simply to transport raw materials out. They also had to train Africans to manipulate these materials. That infrastructure and that training did not leave with the Europeans, it stayed. The Europeans could have easily implemented a scorched earth policy as they withdrew, but did not.
>>763830
Colonial governments in Africa were quite obviously far less repressive than the kingdoms they replaced.
Slavery was still widely practiced in Africa. Millions of africans gained freedom thanks to colonization.
>>763855
>Killing millions of people is feasible or possible
You do realize that Whig history is bullshit and that you can't wipe out an agricultural population. That shit only works on hunger gatherers
>>763600
Unsustainable.
Lose-lose situation and even the best colonies were pretty much a separate entity in nearly every any barring a few things.
>>763870
Slavery was replaced with arbitrary taxation and forced labour once slavery was banned.
>>763947
>Killing millions of people is feasible or possible
>You do realize that Whig history is bullshit and that you can't wipe out an agricultural population. That shit only works on hunger gatherers
Not so fast my friend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll
>>764063
None of those people were agricultural populations though.
You can't wipe out farmers dumbass
>>764076
>Europeans aren't farmers
>Middle Easterners aren't farmers
>Chinese aren't farmers
>Indians aren't farmers
k
>>763600
short term: no
long term: yes
it's good to get a massive economic boost when you have colonies but it will be a matter of time until you can no longer steal all their resources and at that point to things will happen: people will die for a lost cause, you'll eventually lose the colony and then the future - your country/society will try to keep with the living standards they had with the colony but won't be able so they will get massive debts in order to keep it on and hope that whoever comes after pays everything with magical technological advances and mass emigration from the previously colonized nations.
this is happens pretty much all over europe, hence why everything is going down so fast...
>>763600
Pros:
>technology
>ideas
>abolishment of some shitty cultural/religious practices
>greater ability to interact with Western world at later points
Meh:
>failed to fully synthesize European institutions, kind of maybe helped
Cons:
>racism
>shitty artificially drawn borders
>artificially created ethnic groups who now fight each other
>resentment
>Was it bad
Yes
>Was it inevitable
Yes
If it wasn't Yurope, it would've been Turks.
If both stayed out, then the Africans would've slowly exterminated each other for resources like the Native americans were doing for pelt.
>Should I feel guilty?
Of course not you didn't do anything, whilst we should be supporting native Africans with their country, we don't owe Africans who live here shit.
>>764080
>All of those still exist
I think a better question is whether or not the colonies were sustainable or not. Both world wars depleted and exhausted the colonial empires in charge of maintaining them. But if those world wars did not happen would those colonies have remained under their control? It seems to me that the great convergence would not have occurred if these third world countries that are now developing remained colonized.
>>763613
This
Colonialism was good for Europeans, bad for everyone else.
>>764135
>implies killing millions of people is impossible
>Post clear evidence it is in fact possible
>I was only pretending to be retarded.jpg
Seriously, what are you even talking about?
Humans can easily kill millions of people, agricultural civilization or not. You want evidence of the genocide of an agricultural civilization? Native American Indians. Here is a list of tribes which were genocided - killed off completely. These were agricultural people.
https://www.aaanativearts.com/extinct-tribes-a-z
The mongols genocided many, many agricultural peoples in the Middle East and India, and the Romans genocided many tribes in the conquest of Gaul. There is evidence that the Bantu people genocided other african peoples in their migration south.
I don't know why you are fighting so hard to maintain your cognitive dissonance. The Europeans could have genocided entire tribes of african natives and the only reason they didn't was because they didn't want to. Let that sink into your brain for a moment.
>>764114
>abolishment of some shitty cultural/religious practices
put that in meh because some of the Christianity that was preached and developed there on top of the way Christianity evolved to this day is pretty cancerous.
Islam has it's own big issues in Africa on par but it's not as wide covering.
>>764158
The colonies would still be governed like they were on a shoestring budget.It's not like Europe would suddenly waste it's money to bring those colonies up to par uniformly instead of a select few parts and give up it's social welfare and protections just for some schmuck across the world. There was no obligation to give anything but the bare minimum.
You would never totally accept a reduction in your standards of living just so that public schools in some colony are actually free and accessible to all instead of being the privilege of those who can pay school fees.
>>764051
Not really. Very few people ever went into "forced" labour. I think I recall something like 1 or 2% of the total workforce.
>>764271
It was pretty rampant in Portuguese Africa with the Chibalo and it popped up in many African colonies amongst other things like Hut taxes, asset grabbing and land removals in an attempt to squeeze what little money they can get colonies that werea drain on the government coffers.
>>763600
Depends on where, when and by whom. You can't really equate Spanish Peru to say, Belgian Congo or French Africa to Dutch Indonesia. In some places it was terrible, in others it wasn't much worse than average conquest.
Europe generally abandoned its colonies because the colonial systems was no longer economically feasible, so yes. Up until that point they were acceptable at the extraction of natural resources and not so acceptable at improving quality of life, which are attributes shared by most post-colonial states. The idea of independence being this massive shift in the way things were generally done is a myth, even through all of the war that resulted from decolonization.
>>763600
It was pretty profitable.
>>765333
>""""Belgian"""" Congo
Can we stop this shitty meme?
Congo was the private property of King Leopold II and not of the Belgian State. Belgium annexed the Congo Free State as Belgian Congo in 1908.
>>765425
Belgian Congo was still utter ass by all standards compared to other African colonies barring a few exceptions.
>>765396
>and not so acceptable at improving quality of life
But post-colonial states like Rhodesia which kept their European-style and pretty inarguably racist governments were successful in maintaining higher standards of living for natives as opposed to Anti-Colonial states.
